New 113-unit affordable housing project planned for Sacramento. Here’s when it will open
A new 113-unit affordable housing option for low-wage families, the San Juan Apartments, will open in 2026.
The $67 million development at 5700 Stockton Blvd. near Fruitridge Avenue is being built on a vacant lot once home to the San Juan Motel, city officials said.
The apartments will feature one-, two- and three-bedroom units and amenities such as a swimming pool, a barbecue and picnic area, a large community room, social service assistance for residents, off-street parking and EV car chargers.
The online application process for the units will begin at six to nine months before the apartment complex opens, said Ryan Cassidy, the vice president of real estate development at Mutual Housing California.
The not-for-profit Mutual Housing secured rights to develop the project through a competitive bidding process overseen by the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency.
To qualify for an apartment, families must earn below the median income of families their size in the region. In Sacramento County, the median income for a family of four is $113,900, for instance, and for a family of eight, it’s $150,350, according to guidelines updated annually by the California Department of Housing and Community Development.
There are units in San Juan Apartments set aside for families earning below 60%, 50%, 40% or 30% of the median income for their household size, Cassidy said.
Currently, families earning 30% of area median income pay $795 a month for a two bedroom apartment and $919 monthly for a three-bedroom. Those household incomes at roughly 60% of median income now pay $1,591 monthly for a two-bedroom unit and $1,839 for a three-bedroom.
Both the county and city of Sacramento owned separate portions of the vacant plot where the San Juan Apartments will stand. State legislators and the governor enacted legislation, Senate Bill 481, to allow the county to sell its property to the city at a below-market rate under the condition that it only be used for affordable housing.
City Councilman Eric Guerra and and Richard Pan, then a state senator, worked to clear the way for this new development in the Fruitridge Manor neighborhood. In a news release about the project, Guerra recalled beginning work on improving the accessibility and livability of Stockton Boulevard back in 2015.
“This groundbreaking has brought new motivation to move forward with more affordable housing projects throughout the city,” he said. “While this property sat vacant, it was used as an illegal dumping ground, an unhoused encampment, and a blight on the neighborhood, and now it will be transformed into affordable housing.”
Cassidy said that he began to realize just how symbolic this project was for transforming Stockton Boulevard into a center of life for south Sacramento when he saw just how many public officials and neighborhood leaders accepted invitations to last week’s formal groundbreaking.
Opportunities growing on Stockton Boulevard
The demand for affordable housing is so great that Mutual Housing California reports often getting thousands of applications for units in its new projects. The California Legislative Analyst’s Office described housing affordability as a serious and widespread challenge throughout the state in a 2023 report.
While January’s biennial count of Sacramento County’s homeless population showed a steep 29% drop in numbers, California’s poverty rate rose by 18.9% last year, up from 16.4% in 2022, according to US Census data analyzed by the California Budget & Policy Center. This means roughly 7.3 million state residents are unable to meet basic needs for housing or food.
The bottom 20% of Californians earn a median wage of $18,170, the budget center researchers said, and the median income is $89,300. A single adult needs an annual income of more than $56,000 to afford typical expenses in California, the researchers noted, and a single parent with a child needs at least $100,000.
Although many U.S. citizens still hope for an American Dream where their children will earn more than they did, Harvard University researchers have found that only half of U.S. children today actually make more money than their parents. That compares with 90% in the 1940s.
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg described the multifamily development as a vital piece of a larger effort to rejuvenate a key corridor of the city.
“We are building, growing, and creating more jobs and opportunities while ensuring that everyone — from those experiencing homelessness to working individuals — has a safe and dignified place to live, just like anyone in any other neighborhood in our city,” Steinberg said.
Mutual Housing has collaborated with the city and county on other projects, including an affordable housing project called Cornerstone. Developed in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity, Cornerstone was fully occupied when it opened this summer.
Mutual Housing relied upon multiple funding sources to develop the San Juan Apartments, including tax credits, a $2 million grant from the Sacramento Area Council of Governments Green Means Go initiative, a $2.5 million grant awarded to the city from the state’s Prohousing Incentive Pilot program and a $22.67 million loan from the city and county of Sacramento.
